


While the Sands o' Life Shall Run

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, DrunkenKissesChallenge, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father's Day, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, or at least a hopeful one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7245721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is tranquil at their seaside cottage, but Will's heart has yet to realize that the storm is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While the Sands o' Life Shall Run

**Author's Note:**

> Father's Day is tough for me, so I decided to write Hannigram to work through my feelings. Y'know. Like you do.
> 
> All of the gratitude to [Llewcie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie/works) for her on-the-spot beta work. Thank you for being so encouraging! This was written for [Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/)'s #[DrunkenKissesChallenge](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/tagged/DrunkenKissesChallenge), so my thanks to the Cannibal Pub, as well. <3
> 
> Please do not repost/copy/duplicate this work to other sites. That's called theft.

_O my Luve's like a red, red rose,_  
_That's newly sprung in June:_  
_O my Luve's like the melodie,_  
_That's sweetly play'd in tune._  
  
_As fair art thou, my bonie lass,_  
_So deep in luve am I;_  
_And I will luve thee still, my dear,_  
_Till a' the seas gang dry._  
  
_Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,_  
_And the rocks melt wi' the sun;_  
_And I will luve thee still, my dear,_  
_While the sands o' life shall run._  
  
_And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!_  
_And fare-thee-weel, a while!_  
_And I will come again, my Luve,_  
_Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!_

_\--"A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns_

 

* * *

 

Kildonan is a barely-beating heart of a place, a village with an inexplicable pulse that stretches along the one sandy coast of the Isle of Arran. They’ve been here long enough to know the veins of the streets, the aorta that is the village hall, the valves that leak villagers to thriving Whiting Bay for church and school. Will is as satisfied with life here as he is capable of being; Hannibal says nothing about the quiet and relative solitude and has easily made friends with the entire village.

They live in a wooden cottage with a view of the Atlantic. Will finds it apt that he dumped them, sinners both, on one side of the ocean and emerged baptized on the other side. He often leaves the quiet of their single-bedroom home, climbs out of a bed warmed by another body and walks out the door, never bothering to lock it. The walk to the beach is short, and Will goes barefoot, through dew-touched grass and over rock and into sand.

And then he sits down in his boxers and t-shirt and watches the waves. Hannibal knows better than to come and fetch him. Will imagines Hannibal’s grown as used to his morning ritual as his own, waking up alone and padding into the kitchen to make breakfast. There’s always tattie scones and link sausages whenever Will finally returns, though Hannibal has eaten without him, already in his armchair next to the warming stove reading poetry. At some point, a cup of French press coffee will show up next to Will’s hand.

Every day is comfortably the same, as regular as the tide that licks along the shore. Except, that is, for today.

This morning, Will grabbed the bottle of whisky before he trudged down to the beach and plopped down in the sand. He didn’t bother to grab a glass, because he won’t need it. This isn’t a day for sipping what’s left of the tumbler of whisky from the night before, abandoned on the bedside table to soothe his troubled sleep in the morning; Will intends to be completely drunk before he wanders home to Hannibal.

He pulls from the bottle, long gulps that burn all the way down, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm when he’s finished. Will folds his knees up as far toward his chest as they’ll go--they haven’t been the same since being battered by the ocean he’s currently glaring at--and hugs them with his free arm. He closes his eyes and lets his forehead sink in the dip between his knees.

“May I join you?”

Will opens one eye and twists his head far enough to look up at Hannibal. He’s not sure how much time has passed--he drank so much so quickly that his belly began swimming shortly thereafter. But he knows he isn’t drunk enough for _this,_ that it’s too early for _this,_ that he’ll never be ready for _this._

“No,” he tells him.

Hannibal sits down anyway.

Will sighs and unfolds himself carefully, wincing at the ache in his legs as he stretches them out. He props himself up on his forearms and lets his head loll back to stare up at the sky. It’s a washed-out shade of gray and thickly-clouded, just as it always is. Will hears the telltale clink of glasses and switches his focus to Hannibal instead. Also just like always; Hannibal is a distraction even when he’s not around.

He took the time to get dressed, but Hannibal never appears quite so put-together these days. They live simply; any unusual, classy expenditures could give them away, at least until Jack stops looking, which means they’ll likely be here until he’s dead. So Hannibal dresses to fit their new life--plain, unassuming, comfortable.

Today, he’s donned a pair of drawstring linen pants a shade darker than the sand. Will never thought he’d see Hannibal in a pair of canvas loafers, but they’ve turned into his favorite shoes around the house. Hannibal has on a long-sleeved cotton shirt, white and like his loafers and just as worn, unbuttoned and hanging loose. He can see the softness of his stomach, a consequence of easy living and rich food and no one to chase. Neither of them mind.

Hannibal has taken it upon himself to pour them both an indulgent three fingers of whisky. He hands a glass to Will, who shifts his weight to his left arm so he can accept it. They toast each other, a barely there lifting of tumblers. Hannibal takes a sip of his; Will downs the whole thing.

He swallows, looks back out to sea, then says, “It’s Father’s Day.”

“I know.”

“You took away my children.”

A pause, and then, “I know.”

“Margot’s baby. Abigail. Wally. All of them.”

“I did.”

The silence is a quiet yet still-deafening roar in Will’s ears. He holds his glass out toward Hannibal, who pours him another two fingers.

“You intend to drink yourself insensate this morning?” Hannibal asks him. Inquisitive, but not accusatory.

“Yes,” Will replies.

“Then I shall join you in that, as well,” and Hannibal tips back his glass.

Will lies back in the sand, feels the grains slip under the neck of his shirt. He sits his glass on his chest and closes his eyes again.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to forgive you,” Will says quietly.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

He hears the tinkling sound of the glass neck bottle against Hannibal’s tumbler, wonders briefly how much he’ll pour for himself, if he truly intends to join Will in this alcoholic, out-of-body experience. Hannibal hates whisky, especially the swill Will insists on drinking, a ridiculous and petulant habit, made all the more nonsensical by their living in Scotland.

“Does it hurt?” asks Will, his voice distant to his own ears.

Hannibal gulps his whisky and follows it with a noise of disgust. “Always.”

“My not forgiving you, or Abigail?”

“They are one and the same,” says Hannibal, “a memory entangled that I can never unknot.”

Silence again, and Will is glad for it.

More time passes, marked only by the wind and the waves. Hannibal eventually lies down alongside him. He reaches a hand out to tug on the tail of Will’s shirt. Will sighs again and gives him his hand, instead.

“I began breakfast,” Hannibal says, “but it felt wrong to have it without you today.”

“I just need space sometimes.”

“Another gift Molly couldn’t afford you?”

Will blinks back tears. He won’t give Hannibal the perverse satisfaction. “Don’t.”

Hannibal squeezes his hand. “My intention was not to cause you more pain with my question. I was merely curious, and hoped that I had given you the solitude you required.”

“You’re strangely considerate for someone who ruined my life.”

“I might say the same for you,” he replies with a slight laugh.

Will finally squeezes his hand back. The tears finally slip free. The broken sob hiding behind his ribs finally breaks water.

He lets Hannibal take the glass from his chest, lets him pull him up from the sand and into his arms. Will cries, the melancholy water born of too much to drink and too little food; too much sorrow and too much pain. He bawls into the warmth of Hannibal’s shoulder because no one’s around to hear.

Hannibal holds him throughout, presses kisses into his unkempt hair, rubs soothing circles on his back.

“I hate being mad at you,” Will chokes out. “I hate you, and I love you, and I hate not knowing which is greater.”

He feels Hannibal smile against his forehead. “We are of the same mind. But I know I could not live without you, Will. Not anymore. And if all we do is share a bed for the rest of our lives, if I have to leave you to your stretch of beach and keep your breakfast warm, then that is enough. Any part of you is enough.”

Will doesn’t know if he laughs or weeps. Maybe both. “You’ll consume me any way you can.”

“Yes. Always.”

He pulls away from Hannibal, sniffling back the snot that’s tried to escape his nose. Will looks at Hannibal and sees the blurriness to his own vision, the dampness that clings to his eyelashes.

“We’re both very drunk, aren’t we?”

“I haven’t quite caught up with you, but yes.”

Will grabs the bottle and puts it in Hannibal’s hand. “Peer pressure,” he says, then picks up his own tumbler. They toast again, and their respective vessels actually meet this time, tap each other in the middle, an echo that sounds much louder than it could possibly be.

He’s not sure how it happens, but somehow, after he’s emptied his glass again, Will winds up in Hannibal’s lap. His palms trap Hannibal’s face between them, a stark contrast to the softness of their lips meeting. Hannibal doesn’t touch back, and Will breaks the kiss.

“I’ve never done that before, have I?”

“Kissed me first?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

Will exhales slowly before dipping back in for another kiss, and another, and a third and fourth and fifth. Hannibal reciprocates at last, and it’s far from chaste now, deep as the ocean, salt in their mouths from crying, lips chapped from fast drinking and cold air.

“I kiss you,” Hannibal says when they forget how to breathe through their noses. “I kiss you, but you never kiss me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

“And I’m sorry I had to be drunk to finally do it.”

Hannibal chuckles. “It’s alright. I had to be drunk to let you.”

Will nuzzles their cheeks together. “I like sleeping with you. You’re warm. And playing house. That’s good, too.”

“It is,” Hannibal agrees. “Very much so.”

“You didn’t really ruin my life, you know,” says Will. “Just changed it.”

“As you changed mine.”

Will hums a song he can’t remember as Hannibal runs his fingers through his curls. “You should finish making breakfast.”

He feels Hannibal’s chest shake with repressed laughter. “Should I?”

“Yes,” Will says decisively. “It’s impossible to hate someone who brings you coffee.”

They abandon the whisky and the glasses in the tall grass. Hannibal loses a shoe along the way, and Will loses the heartache. They can come back for everything tomorrow. 

**Author's Note:**

> The accompanying aesthetic for this fic can be found [here](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/post/146180917319/he-sits-down-in-his-boxers-and-t-shirt-and-watches). If you enjoyed the story, please consider reblogging it to share with others! :)
> 
> You can find me on my [tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/). I also chirp occasionally witty things on [twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [While the Sands o' Life Shall Run (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7313221) by [Caveat_Lector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caveat_Lector/pseuds/Caveat_Lector)




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